and her dress. The necessity of making sure
that no accident had happened to her disguise,
in the interval since she had left her own room,
impressed itself immediately on her mind. She
stopped the driver at the first pastrycook's shop
which he passed, and there obtained the means
of consulting a looking-glass before she ventured
back to Vauxhall Walk.

Her grey head-dress was disordered, and the
old-fashioned bonnet was a little on one side.
Nothing else had suffered. She set right the few
defects in her costume, and returned to the cab.
It was half-past one when she approached the
house, and knocked, for the second time, at Noel
Vanstone's door. The woman-servant opened
it, as before.

"Has Mrs. Lecount come back?"

"Yes, ma'am. Step this way, if you please."

The servant preceded Magdalen along an empty
passage; and, leading her past an uncarpeted
staircase, opened the door of a room at the back
of the house. The room was lighted by one
window looking out on a yard; the walls were
bare; the boarded floor was uncovered. Two
bedroom chairs stood against the wall, and a
kitchen-table was placed under the window. On
the table stood a glass tank filled with water;
and ornamented in the middle by a miniature
pyramid of rock-work interlaced with weeds.
Snails clung to the sides of the tank; tadpoles
and tiny fish swam swiftly in the green water;
slippery efts and slimy frogs twined their noiseless
way in and out of the weedy rock-work—
and, on the top of the pyramid, there sat
solitary, cold as the stone, brown as the stone,
motionless as the stone, a little bright-eyed toad.
The art of keeping fish and reptiles as domestic
pets had not at that time been popularised in
England; and Magdalen, on entering the room,
started back in irrepressible astonishment and
disgust, from the first specimen of an Aquarium
that she had ever seen.

"Don't be alarmed," said a woman's voice
behind her. "My pets hurt nobody."

Magdalen turned, and confronted Mrs.
Lecount. She had expected—founding her
anticipations on the letter which the housekeeper had
written to her—to see a hard, wily, ill-favoured,
insolent old woman. She found herself in the
presence of a lady of mild ingratiating manners;
whose dress was the perfection of neatness, taste,
and matronly simplicity; whose personal appearance
was little less than a triumph of physical
resistance to the deteriorating influence of time.
If Mrs. Lecount had struck some fifteen or
sixteen years off her real age, and had asserted
herself to be eight-and-thirty, there would not
have been one man in a thousand, or one woman
in a hundred, who would have hesitated to believe
her. Her dark hair was just turning to grey, and
no more. It was plainly parted under a spotless
lace cap, sparingly ornamented with mourning
ribbons. Not a wrinkle appeared on her smooth
white forehead, or her plump white cheeks. Her
double chin was dimpled, and her teeth were
marvels of whiteness and regularity. Her lips
might have been critically considered as too thin,
if they had not been accustomed to make the
best of their defects by means of a pleading and
persuasive smile. Her large black eyes might
have looked fierce if they had been set in the
face of another woman: they were mild and melting
in the face of Mrs. Lecount; they were tenderly
interested in everything she looked at — in
Magdalen, in the toad on the rock-work, in the
back-yard view from the window; in her own
plump fair hands, which she rubbed softly one
over the other while she spoke; in her own
pretty cambric chemisette—which she had a
habit of looking at complacently while she
listened to others. The elegant black gown in
which she mourned the memory of Michael
Vanstone, was not a mere dress—it was a well-made
compliment paid to Death. Her innocent white
muslin apron was a little domestic poem in
itself. Her jet earrings were so modest in their
pretensions, that a Quaker might have looked
at them, and committed no sin. The comely
plumpness of her face was matched by the
comely plumpness of her figure: it glided
smoothly over the ground; it flowed in sedate
undulations when she walked. There are not
many men who could have observed Mrs. Lecount
entirely from the Platonic point of view— lads in
their teens would have found her irresistible—
women only could have hardened their hearts
against her, and mercilessly forced their way
inwards through that fair and smiling surface.
Magdalen's first glance at this Venus of the
autumn period of female life, more than satisfied
her that she had done well to feel her ground in
disguise, before she ventured on matching herself
against Mrs. Lecount.

"Have I the pleasure of addressing the lady
who called this morning?" inquired the
housekeeper. "Am I speaking to Miss Garth?"

Something in the expression of her eyes, as
she asked that question, warned Magdalen to
turn her face farther inwards from the window
than she had turned it yet. The bare doubt
whether the housekeeper might not have seen
her already under too strong a light, shook her
self-possession for the moment. She gave herself
time to recover it, and merely answered by a
bow.

"Accept my excuses, ma'am, for the place in
which I am compelled to receive you," proceeded
Mrs. Lecount, in fluent English, spoken with
a foreign accent. "Mr. Vanstone is only here
for a temporary purpose. We leave for the sea-side
to-morrow afternoon; and it has not been thought
worth while to set the house in proper order.
Will you take a seat, and oblige me by mentioning
the object of your visit?"

She glided imperceptibly a step or two nearer
to Magdalen, and placed a chair for her exactly
opposite the light from the window. "Pray sit
down," said Mrs. Lecount, looking with the
tenderest interest at the visitor's inflamed eyes,
through the visitor's net veil.